246 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



the system are ruined politically. The banks, by 

 standing together, can put up and elect their own 

 man as State treasurer. Honest bankers, he says, 

 are the great exception in Oklahoma, for the system 

 is such that good men are driven away from it. 



Usuiy is practised on a vicious scale all over 

 this part of the country. An investigation of 

 conditions was made by the Comptroller of the 

 Currency in 1915.^ His report showed that on 

 loans of small amounts, such as the tenant farmer 

 is compelled to accept, the interest rates rose as 

 high as 100, 200, and in small sums as high as 2,000 

 per cent. In some sections the banks have been 

 charging rates that were ruinous to their customers. 

 A Texas national bank with a surplus and capital 

 of $250,000 in a city of 15,000 sent to the Comp- 

 troller, in response to a special request, a statement 

 of all loans made by it between August 1, 1914, and 

 November 27, 1914, upon which the interest was 

 more than 8 per cent, per annum. The statement 

 showed that the rate charged by this bank ranged 

 anywhere from 20 to 100 per cent, on short-term 

 paper. In general the high interest rates, which 

 sometimes exceeded 100 per cent., were on the 

 smaller loans, while notes for $1,000 or over rarely 

 paid more than 10 per cent, or 15 per cent, interest. 

 As a matter of fact, the extortionate interest rates 

 were almost all to the most necessitous borrowers, 

 who were for the most part tenant farmers. In- 



^ Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1915, p. 23. 



